Life, One Day at a Time (22 months)

[adinva]

I think it was nice of 25 to support the feelings of the DBers who might have felt offended by seeming reassurances that my son isn't necessarily gay because he takes showers with his buddies. I saw those comments as just participating in the discussion of what does this mean - does it mean drugs necessarily, or is it a sexual experimentation thing, or is it just boys having harmless fun and being silly - my personal answer is it's probably some of all three and maybe more we didn't think of.

My job as a parent is not to prevent him from being or acting gay - as if we could! - but it is to prevent him from being sexual before he's ready or without being safe, and to prevent him from becoming a drug addict or even a social drug user with an unfortunate conviction that wreaks havoc on his life and dreams.

I think sometimes, like a game of wack-a-mole, that each behavior we discover and shut down will spawn another one we didn't anticipate, until hopefully his own good judgment kicks in.

I appreciate having this wide group of people to draw wisdom and ideas from - so much. I would not have thought that "axe wars" was covering up drug use, but now that I do, by being willing to share that information openly with other people and risk their judging me and my son, I can let some others onto that "secret" and help our (it takes a) village nip this in the bud, no pun intended. Similarly, by being open to hearing whatever you guys have to say, I can learn and share more than I knew before potentially.

I have recently been in the position of looking like a crazy fanatic for standing up for people who might have been offended, or might not, but weren't saying anything about it themselves. I see no harm in 25's lecture, because if you weren't putting down gay people you know that, and if gay people felt put down anyway, 25 stood up for them.

In our house, we've been pretty vocal that we do not judge people based on who they love. We know some of the kids we've watched grow up in and out of our house are going to be gay, just statistically, and they'll be accepted by the adults here no matter what.

The shower thing, like so many things that a pack of teenage boys will do, started out looking like normal goofing around, then precedent was set, then it increased while H and I were scratching our heads about it. Before we figured out there were kids getting high in our house, we never would have thought that's what they might be doing in there. They wear shorts in there. They always have some kind of answer if you ask a question. They're always being silly and funny, and it seemed like just part of that routine, at first. Based on what else is going on though, I'm 100% sure that the bro showers were for the purpose of smoking pot.